Tagged: iPad

Easily iPad Enable Your WordPress Blog

The Apple iPad is the single most exciting technology to come since the introduction of the IBM PC many years ago.  I am old enough to see both come to market.  The iPad is a platform for content consumption and we are seeing only the very beginning of how creators will visually delivery their content to us.

I have in recent months moved this blog to WordPress from another self-hosted platform and often wonder how I waited so long to make the transition when I see the great themes and plugins made available to us.

The recent release of WordPress 3.1 made me aware of one such plugin.  Onswipe plugin allows any WordPress blog to have a unique view when viewing on the iPad.  The implementation looks very much like my current favorite iPad app, Flipboard.

The publisher says:

Onswipe makes it insanely easy to publish on touch enabled devices. When your readers navigate from an iPad to your site they are given a beautiful app like experience.

This is a pretty bold claim but one I think the plugin lives up to quite handily.

IMG 0002

I installed the plugin from the WordPress Dashboard and accepted the defaults.  Above you can see what my blog looks like on the front page, taken from my iPad.  If you are familiar with the Flipboard application, the user is presented with “swipe me”, a simple gesture brings the user to the first page of the site.

IMG 0003

What interests me here is 5 posts shown per page and *if* I had an image associated a post,  the image would be used.  I think if there are multiple images in the post the first one appearing in the HTML will be used.  The content is really nicely laid out and presented cleanly without any work on my end.

IMG 0005

The page for a particular post has a very clean presentation.  The font face and the color of the title are customizable from the WordPress Dashboard.  Any comments for a post are visible from the View Comments button where users can also add new comments.

IMG 0006

The little icon in the upper right corner of a post, like so many iPad apps, allows the reader to share the post to Twitter, Facebook or by email.  This is nice little addition to the theme.

IMG 0004

The menu button from the front page allows easy navigation to Pages, posts by a particular category or all the posts.

I have tested this blog from my iPad and it really is a thing of beauty.  The HTML5 is well done and fast and truly transform my blog both in function and in presentation.  Well-done Onswipe, who looks to have some other offerings on the horizon.

So, go grab your iPad and take a look at this site using it.

Interesting MobileMe Find My iPhone Behavior on iPhone 3GS

Today Apple released iOS 4.2.1 for all their mobile devices including iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad.  One of the last-minute features announced was the Fine My iPhone features which allows users to track down a stolen or misplaced iPhone.  Until today you had to have a MobileMe account costing $99 per year.  Today’s release gave iOS users a free MobileMe account which they can use for Find My iPhone.

I downloaded and installed iOS 4.2.1 for both my iPad and iPhone 3GS through iTunes.  Installation went without a hitch.

Find My iPhone

The Apple press release describes the feature:

The Find My iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) feature is now free to use without a MobileMe℠ subscription and helps you locate your missing device.* The Find My iPhone app is a free download on the App Store℠ and lets users easily locate a missing device on a map and have it display a message or play a sound. Users can even remotely lock or wipe data from a lost device to protect privacy.

After installing the iOS update on the iPhone I decided to try the Find My iPhone feature.  On the iPhone this feature is enabled by going to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calenders->Add Account…MobileMe.  I just used my existing Apple ID and password but encountered the following error message:

iPhone3GS-MobileMe

Hmm…so maybe pre-iPhone 4 devices aren’t supported.  I decided to give it a try on the iPad to see if maybe the service was just overwhelmed, following the same process the account was added and verified with ease.

I then decided to give it shot on the iPhone 3GS one last time and viola..worked fine.  So it appears Apple either has a bug in setting up an iOS device that is not current generation first or something got fixed.  I have heard from another user who experienced the same behavior.

Easiest fix if you experience the same problem, add your iPad or other device first.  If no other device exists..well, then I’m not sure. 

UPDATE: A reader here and confirmed on Twitter points out this behavior is by-design and you must have a current generation device to setup the free MobileMe account and then register your older devices.  The very fine print on the Apple web site states:

3. You can create a free Find My iPhone account on any iPhone 4, iPad, or iPod touch (4th generation) running iOS 4.2. Once you create an account on a qualifying device, use your Apple ID and password to enable Find My iPhone on your other devices running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone is not available in all countries.

I guess if you have only an older device, like the iPhone 3GS, you are out of luck.  I would not have found this information by casually reading any information when setting up iOS 4.2.1 on my 3GS.  Had I setup the 3GS second, I would not have run into this either.

My Top 10 iPad Applications

I know more and more people who are buying iPads almost daily.  I get asked what applications I recommend for the device.  things_hero_20100616

First, I don’t use a tool because of cost, I use it for it’s usefulness to me.  Free is great, but never the top requirement when searching out a piece of software for my iPad.  So, here is the top 10 applications I use:

  1.  TweetDeck (Free) – I use Twitter a lot and use this software exclusively from my laptop and the iPad version functions the same so it is a nice extension from the MacBook Pro.  Note: at this time the software is not without one annoying flaw; when opening links from a tweet, the app will often crash, other times not but it can be a pain.
  2. NetNewsWire ($9.99) – I keep up with a fair amount of RSS feeds and this software syncs with Google Reader which I use daily on my laptop.  It is a nice rich-client which keeps Google Reader up-to-date and has a nice UI to boot.
  3. GoodReader ($0.99) – I read a lot of books, which is one reason I bought the iPad.  This utility makes reading PDF’s enjoyable.  Dropbox integrates nicely with it to, allowing me to keep my PDFs on Dropbox.
  4. SimpleNote (Free) – This does just what it says, simple notes.  This is like having a little notepad always ready but the beauty is it syncs to an online service to get your notes from any browser.
  5. iSSH ($9.99) – It’s really nice to have the iPad 3G to have connectivity almost anywhere and when accompanied by a great SSH utility like this I can SSH into all of my servers with ease.  One more reason not to carry the laptop.
  6. BlogPress ($2.99) – I don’t write long emails or blog much from the iPad but this tool integrates nicely with WordPress and makes those short post really easy.  Lots of features for the regular blogger.
  7. Penultimate ($2.99) – Great utility for mocking up ideas, taking notes or just a brain dump.  Drawing on the iPad surface with my finger is super easy and no delays.
  8. Instapaper ($4.99) – This is a great service which is used in all of my browsers to bookmark web pages I want to go back and read later.  The iPad version makes reading on the device really slick.
  9. BeejiveIM ($9.99) – A great way to keep in touch with remote workers and other contacts is of course IM and unfortunately I am on a few but this tool keeps them all in one place with the exception of Skype which I hope gets added soon.  A runner-up to this tool is IM+ ($9.99, Free Lite Version) which does offer Skype IM integration but the UI is not as refined.
  10. Things ($19.99) – I use this to-do list on my MacBook Pro, iPhone and now the iPad to manage projects with a nice clean interface.  The mobile devices sync back to the MBP and keeps everything in order.  I have to say the entire suite is a bit pricey compared to other iPhone and iPad applications out there but for something I use all the time, worth it.

Bonus -  Netflix (Free) – this is really the only entertainment type application on this list and after a long day of working it is often nice to pull up a movie or TV episode.  The quality of video is exceptional.

I can’t think of a replacement for any of these tools just yet.  I have tried their competitors but these stick as my favorites and most useful.